Visual Storytelling: Camera Techniques and Documentary Styles
Shot Types and Their Impact
Shot types are fundamental tools in visual storytelling, each serving a distinct purpose. They can be categorized into three main groups:
- Close-ups: Emphasize a specific action or expression.
- Intermediate Levels: Mimic normal viewing distance.
- Distant Planes: Establish the subject within their environment.
General Shot Types
- General Plan: Quickly indicates the action’s coordinates.
- Midplane: Shows a description of longer duration, distinguishing the subject.
- American Plane: Cuts the figure at the knee.
- Median Plane: Contextualizes the situation, cut at the waist and chest.
- Close (Close Up): Expresses emotion, from the shoulders up.
- First and Fore: Maximum closeness, from the mentor to the eyebrow.
Camera Movement Techniques
Camera movements add dynamism and perspective to a scene.
- Pan: Rotation on the camera’s axis.
- Tilt Up: Vertical movement upwards.
- Tilt Down: Vertical movement downwards.
- Rocker Movement
- Traveling (Truck): The camera moves with the subject.
- Straight-line arc-curve-motion: Object must appear in the foreground.
- Dolly In: Translational motion forward.
- Dolly Out: Translational motion backward.
Optic Movements
- Zoom: Continuous focal length change, flattening the image.
- Pan Focus: Shifts focus between foreground and background.
Camera Positioning
- Head On: Fixed camera, movements within the frame.
- Tail Away: Subject enters the frame, fixed camera.
- Cross Screen: Crosses the plane of the camera.
Camera View and Visual Axis
The camera’s height and visual axis influence the viewer’s perception.
- Visual Axis Height: Average height of a population.
- Visual Axis: Provides coherent, realistic information.
- Against Chopped: From below, elevates the person.
- Floor Level: Sees the world from a low perspective.
- Cerritos: Bird’s eye view.
- Combination of Shaft Height: For example, looking up at a seated person.
Documentary Genres and Screenplay Elements
Documentaries capture and combine fragments of reality.
Documentary Genres
Documentaries can be:
- Adventure
- Science
- History
- Propaganda
- Ethnographic
- Poetic
- Institutional
Documentary scenes communicate, combined and superimposed, expressing a point of view.
Screenplay Elements
- Research: Participation or non-participation, interviews, and public images.
- Story or Fiction Scenario: Invented by the writer (music, fiction, historical, horror, auteur).
- Auteur: The person who prepares the script.
- Clip: A short, popular genre.
Screenplay Structure
The screenplay is the film’s text.
- Conflict: What is the conflict, how does it develop, and what is the outcome?
- Literary Script: Characters, scene structure, and creativity.
- Story: Images of the main scenes.
- Story Line: Script with length of time.